Solving old problems, learning new things and forgetting most of them : Distribution, internationalisation and networks

This paper examines some of the striking similarities and differences in issues and conceptual structure between three seemingly disparate areas of study over a 50‐year period; distribution channels, internationalisation and networks. The paper questions why these and other areas of study seem to emerge, prosper and decline in a relatively brief period and shows how each seems to have been developed more or less in isolation from earlier ones. More importantly, it suggests that the researchers involved in each area often do not seem to have learned from what has gone before. The paper draws a number of conclusions from this pattern for the practice of research in marketing.